The Manley Panel's Report came out today, I have just completed reading it as well as another interesting report, John Manely's contribution to a journal, Policy Options. In the October issue of that journal, John Manley wrote an entry on Afghanistan, this was before he was picked to head the 5 person panel appointed by Stephen Harper. In reading both, two passages struck me. They were not only similar, but bordering on exactly the same.

Why this troubles me is two points: the first, it seems quite perplexing how John Manley's opinion before he spent three months looking at facts and talking to witnesses can be so similar to his opinion after; the second point, is plagerism and how it affects the Panel. Now some may suggest this is not plagiarism, academically it is; but besides that fact, the references I give, by his use of old material in the forward of the report and imposing it on the work done by the Panel, it appears that he attributes conclusions he made seperately and previously, onto the Panel.

Honest to gawd, if I had been sent on a fact finding mission for three months and produced such a piece of fluff I would have been torn to shreds. When I first read it I thought I had copied an executive summary and had missed the full document.

The people who defend the Manley panel’s relevance, point to the report’s demand of 1000 NATO troops to assist Canadian forces in Kandahar, as evidence of a hard-nosed approach, evidence the status-quo is unacceptable, moving forward. Yesterday, I pointed out that this demand was more bluster, than actual position, because the panel already had indications that NATO, specifically the Americans, were already on side with this troop increase.

Sources at NATO headquarters in Belgium and in the United States have indicated in recent days that two marine battalions being sent to southern Afghanistan for seven months this spring with specific orders to assist the Canadians are likely to be followed by even more marine battalions in 2009 and 2010. This was possible because the Pentagon has begun to slowly wind down combat operations in Iraq and because the marine leadership has been pressing hard for a bigger role in Afghanistan.

The officer, who did not wish to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the issue, said U.S. help for the Canadians had been in the works for several months.

A nifty post at The Scott Ross which argues that the Manley Report is a rehash of his earlier article in Policy Options, "Afghanistan: Meeting the Development Challenge". Since the article was published in October of '07, before he was chosen to lead Stephen Harper's panel, Ross suggests that the panel itself was an empty pantomime, and the other panellists sock-puppets meant to function as a chorus to John Manley's pronouncements.

Read the whole thing at the link above, but here's a couple of passages that clearly imply a degree of self-plagiarism on Manley's part.

From the report:

Whenever we asked Afghans what they thought ISAF or Canada should do, there was never any hesitation: “We want you to stay; we need you to stay.” Without the presence of the international security forces, they said, chaos would surely ensue.From "Policy Options":

Whenever we asked Afghans what they thought ISAF or Canada should do, they did not hesitate to say that we must stay. Without the presence of the international forces, chaos would surely ensue.

So Canadian tax-payers forked out how much for this cut-and-paste job?

3 comments:

You'll note, Erik, that several of the bloggers you've listed are either Liberal bloggers or who sympathize with the Liberal position. You can include me in that group - I think this whole panel thing was a sham designed to get a report that was favourable to Harper's position. It's only shocking that it was made so obvious).

A fine sentiment but I have bad news for you: for a democratic Canada to be undermined it must first be democratic. There should be a word to describe a system which has as one of its fundemental characteristics the deliberate obfuscation of the facts presented to the public for the purpose of manipulating their will. All that is really happening is that the Information Age is allowing us to see glimpses of the mailed fist under the velvet glove.

There should be a word to describe a system which has as one of its fundemental characteristics the deliberate obfuscation of the facts presented to the public for the purpose of manipulating their will.

That's what most people would call corrupt, morally and/or legally corrupt.